Beneath the dense forest canopy of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a troop of gorillas is being quietly observed by a group of tourists who have each paid $۸۰۰ for the privilege of the experience.
In villages around the park, a thriving economy has grown off the back of the gorillas’ presence here, from the sale of wood carvings to visitors and the provision of accommodation for up to ۴۰,۰۰۰ tourists a year.
In the national park, which sprawls along the edge of the Rift Valley and the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), there are many local jobs for rangers and guides.
But deeper into the forest, more mountain gorillas live away from human contact, quietly enhancing the natural world around them through their daily routines of foraging, nest building and dispersing seeds.
And, crucially, by increasing their own populations.
In the ۱۹۸۰s, the mountain gorilla was on the fast track to extinction. Now, there are more than ۱,۱۰۰ living in thriving populations in Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.
Theirs is a story of conservation success that spills beyond the species themselves, into the nature they live in, and the human communities they exist alongside.
“The mountain gorilla story shows us that conservation can work,” Tara Stoinski of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund tells Al Jazeera. “It’s a really important example of the effort that’s needed to make that happen – decades of sustained conservation action that includes direct protection, science-informed management and meaningful community support and involvement.”
When science and policy align
This is welcome news for a natural world beset by crisis.
According to this year’s Living Planet Report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), over the past ۵۲ years, there has been a ۷۳ percent decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations. Across the world, habitats have been degraded and lost as overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive species take their toll.
But the report also highlights important recoveries in populations of green turtles, bluefin tuna, tigers and Southern African elephants. “For too long nature has been undervalued,” says Andrew Terry, chief conservation officer at the Zoological Society of London, who helped produce the report. “But these declines are not inevitable and change is possible. Nature can recover, and these stories are a powerful reminder of this.”
The WWF says these conservation successes demonstrate how international partnerships drive results. Intergovernmental commitments from tiger range countries, including India, Bhutan, Nepal, Laos and China, helped increase global wild tiger numbers by more than ۷۰ percent between ۲۰۱۰ and ۲۰۲۵.
In ۲۰۲۵, the green sea turtle became the first marine turtle ever to be downlisted from “endangered” to “least concern” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List. That reflected ۵۰ years of species research, active protection of nesting females and eggs, measures to reduce fishing gear and sustained community engagement.
Professor Brendon Godley is a leading conservation scientist at the University of Exeter and the Sharjah Marine Research Centre in the United Arab Emirates and has spent much of his career dedicated to researching and protecting sea turtles. “Conservation success stories are hugely important because they demonstrate that declines are not inevitable,” he tells Al Jazeera.
“The recovery of species such as green turtles shows that when science, policy, enforcement and public support align, populations can rebound, sometimes remarkably so. However, they are not grounds for complacency.”
Small battles – where hope comes from
Indeed, these conservation triumphs are small battles won in an ongoing war against the degradation of nature. The WWF’s Living Planet Report highlights the three systems that are primarily driving the destruction of nature: the global food system, which is the leading cause of habitat loss as areas are cleared to grow crops; the energy system, which fuels climate change through burning fossil fuels; and the finance system, which bankrolls harmful activities, for example, large-scale infrastructure or mining projects.
Kirsten Schuijt, director general of WWF, says these industries and systems need to be transformed. “Progress is already under way,” she tells Al Jazeera. “Not everywhere, and not yet at the scale required, but enough to demonstrate that change is possible.”
The return of a species can have a powerful effect. In ۲۰۱۰, Atlantic bluefin tuna populations had declined by ۸۰ percent and the species was listed as endangered. They had disappeared from much of their historical range, including UK waters. Yet today they are returning in numbers not witnessed in generations, perhaps ever.
“What makes this story particularly powerful is that the recovery is visible,” says Tom Horton, research fellow at the University of Exeter. “Coastal communities, fishers and sea-users who had never seen a bluefin tuna in British waters are now encountering them regularly. It transforms conservation from an abstract concept into something tangible.”
These successes serve as inspiration for other conservation projects in the fight against species decline, like that of the largest primate on Earth, the critically endangered Grauer’s Gorilla. Its home range lies within the vast remote forests of the DRC, living in a landscape beset by instability and habitat loss. Its numbers have dropped by an estimated ۶۰ percent to just ۶,۸۰۰ today.
Urbain Ngobobo, country director for the Dian Fossey Fund in the DRC, explains that the challenge of restoring numbers there is significant but so is the opportunity.
“Every forest we help communities protect,” he says, “every gorilla we are able to monitor and every young Congolese person who develops the skills to become a conservation leader, represents progress.
“That is where hope comes from – not from assuming the future will be easy, but from knowing that our actions today can change what is possible tomorrow.”
